Sunflowers
by Sofipitch
Summary: Winry doesn't realize how tall Ed's gotten till they go out to measure him against some of Miss Stubblefield's sunflowers. Happy (late) 503 day!


Title: Sunflowers

Author: Sofipitch

Word Count: 908

Characters: Winry, Edward, Alphonse

Rating: G

Summary: Winry doesn't realize how tall Ed's gotten till they go out to measure him against some of Miss Stubblefield's sunflowers.

Warnings: spoilers

A/N: Happy (late) 503 day! I hadn't realized what day it was till I had been putting the date on a math exam, so excuse my forgetful and lateness. And the fact that this isn't very "romancy". (warning, romancy isn't an actual word)

_/But he never let me down_

_When he had me in his arms_

_My feet never touched the ground/_

-Heavy In Your Arms, Florence + the Machine

When they had been younger, Miss Stubblefield's sunflower grove had been the best place in the world. They could play some of the most intense games of hide 'n' seek and tag. Once he got older though, Edward always cheated when playing tag, for if you were pursuing him he would bend one of the flimsier stems back so that they would hit you square in the face. Winry found this unfair, but there really weren't any rules to tag other than that if you get tagged, you're "It".

But for the most part, they would measure their height against the sunflower stocks to see how much they had grown. Of course there was no really accurate way to do so. It was done by eyeball and by guessing how tall they had been last time. Most of the time them would just assume they had grown, even if they probably hadn't to the extend where it was noticeable. Edward was especially keen on announcing how many inches he had grown. Winry and Alphonse usually argued that he hadn't, and he would puff out his chest while arguing with them and when he lost the arguments, which he always did, he would stomp away. He would usually go to Auntie Trisha and tell her what had happened and she would rock him in her arms and tell him how someday he would grow up to be big and strong and Alphonse and Winry couldn't have anything to say against it.

Sometimes Alphonse and Winry would make fun of him for running to Mommy. But sometimes, depending on how offended he was, they left him alone. Either way, despite what would happen, they would be back to playing together again in only a matter of minutes.

After Trisha died, there was no more playing together carelessly as they used to. Especially no measuring each other against the sunflowers. Who would rock Edward in their arms when he wasn't tall enough? For the boys, there was too much research to be done for silly things such as those anyways. As the boys matured, they unknowingly made Winry mature with them, as they pulled her out of the bliss she had been living and into a more realistic world. That world would later be the one to introduce Winry to mechanics in a whole new light, as not only something her grandmother did, but a something she could do. And something she would grow to love herself.

Winry was considered to be a tall child growing up, but she never became taller than one of Miss Stubblefield's prized sunflowers. But when the boys returned home, Alphonse with his body back and Edward with his arm, and they noticed Alphonse began growing rather rapidly to make up for the poor job his body had done on the other side of the gate. The day this growth was discussed over breakfast Winry immediately decided that they need to go down to the sunflower grove to measure themselves. Edward rolled his eyes and complained that it was silly to do so, but when they were walking down to the grove, he announced that at least this time, he could proclaim that he had in fact grown. They spent the rest of the walk to the grove laughing.

Winry's crown made it right below the southernmost petal on the most average sized six foot sunflower when measured against it. Alphonse, who you can recall had not grown to his full potential, stood just a little above Winry's height against the flower. His eyes met the middle of the head of the flower. Ed though, he had definitely grown. He stood now taller than six feet, just taller than the sunflower. Winry had noticed before how Edward had grown a head above hers, and she had taken his measurement to fit his automail, but now it was obvious he had grown much more since then.

Ed looked down at her then, his eyes sparkling and a wide arrangement of teeth on display, with pride at his—now very obvious—newfound achievement. He was looking straight down at her as he grinned and becoming his center of attention in a way in which she often felt she wasn't made her stomach curl and her blood rush to her face in a faint blush.

"Well, Ed, I don't really think you've grown at all," Al said jokingly, shaking his head as if unsatisfied with his brother's height. This comment immediately diffused the short moment between Edward and Winry as Ed turn to Al to make a retort to his joke.

The brothers went on teasing and bullying each other and having been left out and knowing that if she left they would eventually follow her back to the house, Winry turn around and left. "It looks like you might need to have your leg readjusted," Winry mumbled to Ed under her breath as she heard him yelling at Alphonse, height obviously still a sore subject.

No matter how much he would grow, it would always define him, and later, much older, while tucking her children into bed, Winry would tell them how much taller she had been than their father and how if you told mentioned it to him, he would burst out in insult you right back. Much as he would still do, despite being able to pick Winry right up off the ground when hugging her.


End file.
